How Josh Jacobs used life’s bad breaks to carve a path to the NFL

“That was when I started to notice the difference,” Josh said. “You’re getting to the age where what you wear is pretty big. I would notice that somebody would have something on that I wanted, but when we went to the store, I found out I couldn’t get it.”

The one thing Josh could count on in those days — aside from Marty’s perseverance — was football. When he started playing at the junior football level, he was too heavy to play a skill position, so he wound up at defensive end. However, Josh also came of age at a time when seven-time Pro Bowl running back Adrian Peterson was an All-American at Oklahoma. The more Josh watched Peterson rumble, the more he knew that running back was his calling.

The only problem was that very few people outside of the Tulsa area knew how good Jacobs could be. Even after he ran for 5,372 yards and 58 touchdowns at McLain High School — including 2,704 yards and 31 touchdowns as a quarterback in his senior year — hardly any recruiters came calling. New Mexico State offered a scholarship. Wyoming did, as well. But no other Division I schools showed any serious interest, not even local programs like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Tulsa.

It didn’t help that McLain wasn’t a prominent football factory, but Jacobs believes there were other factors at play. He remembers seeing Oklahoma assistant Mike Stoops at his little league baseball games, so, as Jacobs said, “It wasn’t like they didn’t know who I was.”

“I was leading the state in rushing,” he added. “How is it that the guy who was 10th was getting offers and I wasn’t when I was (outgaining) that guy by 1,000 yards? My school didn’t know how to do recruiting. I didn’t know anything about camps. I didn’t know anything about ratings until I got to college. That was probably the biggest factor — my being uninformed.”

Jacobs was more than willing to go to Wyoming when a random fan reached out to him through social media in January 2016, roughly a month before National Signing Day. The man had caught Jacobs on film while watching highlights of another player and wondered why Jacobs wasn’t fielding more offers from major schools. Jacobs told him he had been frustrated by the same question for weeks. That’s when the man told Jacobs to try a different path to notoriety: Twitter.

It took Jacobs less than a week to hear from major college recruiters after posting his highlight tape. Missouri called and sent an assistant to watch him play basketball. Oklahoma suddenly had a serious interest and offered. Before Jacobs knew it, he was fielding 10 to 12 calls a day and trying his best to narrow his options at the last minute. When Alabama assistant coach Burton Burns came to watch him play basketball — and arranged a visit to Tuscaloosa in the final weekend before signing day — Jacobs knew where he wanted to go.